


the last revolving year

by Anonymous



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Establishing Trust, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 22:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12993510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Auston wants his story to start with Mitch, but it has to start much earlier, with a kind of sunshine Auston’s never seen in Toronto.





	the last revolving year

**Author's Note:**

> please please please if you know anyone tagged in this story, click away. this is a very fictional story and is in no way informed by the real actions of any real people.

Auston forgives Mitch before Mitch even asks him to. 

Maybe he shouldn't; Mitch certainly doesn't deserve it, considering what he's doing is fucked up, but maybe Auston wants to. It's nice, to take Mitch down from that pedestal. It's nice that Mitch isn't too good for Auston, anymore. It's a power trip, being in a position to forgive someone, and maybe that's why he does it. 

Auston can't fix Mitch, because he's a person, not a problem. 

He wants to help. That's all. 

-

Auston wasn't cheated on. Maybe. 

He was... something. Something that made trust hard to come by. Something that hardened him up and closed him off and got his mother's forehead to crinkle and made his father frown, and Auston knows that it was his fault, is the thing. He should've asked. 

He thought they were unconventional in love, but in love nonetheless. She thought otherwise. That's all. 

-

Auston's willing to slice himself up for Mitch, but Mitch wants all of him. Mitch doesn't trust himself with Auston's heart, like he hasn't carried it gently in his hands for months, and neither of them thinks it's a good idea to do things this way, but not doing anything seems so much worse. Auston figures if one of them can take risks, it's him. 

Sometimes, Auston feels like he doesn't deserve to trust people, even though he knows he does. And maybe Mitch doesn't deserve to be trusted, but there's a part of Auston that thinks it might be okay if he does anyway. 

-

(He's nontraditional. He's done nontraditional his whole life. 

"We don't have to, like, be exclusive," she tells him. 

He's the first overall draft pick. He shouldn't have to settle for just one girl. He should be excited that she’s cool about this, should want it, even. 

“So I can sleep with other girls?” Auston asks. 

“You can sleep with whoever you want,” she says. “As long as you’re okay with me sleeping with other guys.” 

He nods. “Alright.” 

She smiles, a glint in her eye. “Maybe girls too.” 

Auston turns red at that, and she laughs. He doesn’t really know what’s funny about that, but if she gets girls, maybe he can get guys. Maybe guys are something he can want, if he’s nontraditional, if they’re nontraditional.) 

-

“Talk about Arizona,” Mitch says. 

Auston snorts. “You ask me that once a week.” 

“You don’t talk about yourself,” Mitch says. “Unless I ask.” 

“It’s not my first instinct,” Auston says. 

Mitch nods. “I’m not asking for your deepest, darkest secrets.” 

“Just the boring details?” Auston asks. “Not the personal stuff?”

“That’s not something I can ask you for,” Mitch says. 

“But you want to know it,” Auston says. 

“When you want to tell me,” Mitch says. “But I want to know the easy stuff first, so the hard stuff is a little less hard when we get to it.” 

“What if I want to start with the hard stuff?” Auston asks. 

“I’m all ears,” Mitch says, then rests his head on Auston’s lap, looking up at him. 

Auston purses his lips, runs a hand through Mitch’s hair. “Can I tell you about the first time I fell in love?”

Mitch nods, cautious, and Auston takes a deep breath and begins.

-

Auston wants his story to start with Mitch, but it has to start much earlier, with a kind of sunshine Auston’s never seen in Toronto.

-

“You fucked me up,” he tells her. “For months.” 

She looks at him, taken aback. “How?” 

“You never – we weren’t together, in you head, were we,” he says. “I thought we were just… I dunno, open.” 

“We were,” she says. 

“No,” he says. “No, because we weren’t anything.” 

“I – we were just sleeping together,” she says. 

“I thought it was gonna be us, and then other people,” he says. “But then you had that with someone else, and I just – that fucked me up.” 

She looks terrified, now. “I didn’t know you thought that.” 

“Well, I did,” he says. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “You should have told me.” 

He shrugs. “I should’ve ended it sooner.” 

“That’s true,” she says, and grabs his hand. “We’re young, we make mistakes.” 

“We’ll learn,” he says, and he wants to take his hand away, but he doesn’t, and later, when he tells her about Mitch, the smile on her face is genuine. 

-

Auston and Mitch had fallen in parallel spirals, brushing against each other erratically until Auston had made the choice to twist them together. 

Auston hadn’t expected them to make sense, and he hadn’t expected them to be strong, and he keeps waiting for them to crack, except it isn’t happening. 

Auston had gotten off on the thought of Mitch’s darkest moments for months, and then Mitch kissed him sweetly in his car. He hadn’t even known that people like them – scorned, bruised, burned, guilty, lonely – got to have sweetness like that. Nothing about them has any business being easy. 

Auston knows Mitch won’t ask for his trust, so he gives it freely on his own, reminds himself that this is the risk he decided to take, so he might as well commit to it. 

-

These days, Mitch doesn’t drink that much, but right now, he’s too drunk, and so sad, and Auston’s heart is breaking. 

“I’m sorry,” Mitch says, and he’s crying. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Auston says. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Mitch shakes his head. “It’s not, it’s not, it’s not–” 

“Did something happen?” Auston doesn’t keep the worry out of his voice. Mitch wouldn’t want him to. 

“I couldn’t,” Mitch says. “I’m a bad person, but I can’t picture hurting you, and that means it could happen again, and I wouldn’t know how to do it better this time.” 

“You’re already doing things better this time,” Auston says. 

“How?” Mitch asks. 

“You’re talking to me,” Auston says. “You’re being more honest with yourself. You talk about what you want–”

“Talk about you,” Mitch says, sudden. “We shouldn’t make it all about me.” 

“Things are about you right now,” Auston says. 

Mitch shakes his head. “No, you’re too important.” 

“Okay, well, I’m worried I put you up on a pedestal, sometimes,” Auston says. “Despite everything.” 

“I’m worried about that too,” Mitch says. 

“You know you’ve earned my trust, right?” Auston says. 

Mitch shakes his head, and Auston pulls him in close. 

-

Thankfully, Mitch falls asleep with his head on Auston’s chest as soon as they get home. Auston puts his nose into Mitch’s hair, breathes in his shampoo. 

-

“I like the word partner,” Mitch says. 

“In what context?” Auston asks. 

“Us,” Mitch says. “I like having you as my partner.” 

“Better than you like having me as your boyfriend?” Auston asks. 

Mitch thinks about it for a second. “Nah, the word doesn’t matter as long as we all know I’m yours,” he says, and then he grins, too wide and too cute.

-

Auston spends a lot of time wondering what it means that he fell in love with Mitch when Mitch had a girlfriend, when Mitch was cheating on that girlfriend, when Mitch was so wrapped up in his own loneliness that Auston could barely look at him. 

(Auston was heartbroken, too, even though he didn’t want to be. He shouldn’t have been. He should have asked.) 

-

When they’d first gotten together, Mitch had thanked Auston for giving him the chance to do things right.

“I don’t want you to trust me yet,” Mitch had said. “Even though you told me that you do. Please don’t. Please learn to.” 

It had been a plea, and Auston had given in. It felt like breaking ground. 

**Author's Note:**

> again, the girl in this story is an ofc and is not auston matthews' real life girlfriend.


End file.
